I'll be presenting two sessions later this month (February 18th) at the Minnesota Online Educator's Association (MNOLA) conference. One of them is a session I call "The Real Disruptive Innovation" which questions whether Clayton Christensen, Mike Horn, and Curtis Johnson are right in their assessment that the disruptive innovation in education is individualized instruction. Or rather, whether it is the individualization done by the teacher or that done by the student through choice that is innovative and disruptive. I hope in this presentation to raise questions and spark discussion weaving in ideas of the theory of disruptive innovation in schools, the purpose of school, and how to build community and capitalize on student interests.
Here is my slide deck for this talk:
So, if families and students are not choosing online schooling for individualized learning, what are they choosing online schools for?
If the purpose a family or student chooses your school is something other than individualized instruction, should the school work to address this/these reasons?
If a student is choosing online schooling so they can let other interests take priority over school, how do you as a teacher draw upon those other priorities to improve the quality of that student's schooling?
What do you think? I would love to share your input at my presentation.
3 comments:
Hi Carl,
Three words:
Childcare
Football
Responsibility
While I truly believe blended or hybrid classes will soon be the norm, for the majority of K-12 families, other than those that would home school anyway, the concept is probably more appealing than the reality.
Grad school, yes; sixth grade, not so much.
Liked the slides and I wish I could hear your talk. Knock'm dead.
Doug
I think the thing about seeing online instruction/school as disruptive innovation is a matter of how the idea of disruption is framed. Yes, it might change the economic model for content delivery. Yes, it can change some social structures by altering where people need to be when. But so far, online schools have not even begun to approach creating or addressing a cultural disruption/change in our understanding of learning. Personalizing instruction is still a delivery-based premise. I thought the survey info was interesting, because what it suggests is that online learning becomes a way for people to make the bitter pill of someone else’s learning goals go down easier, and maybe faster, with less personal hassle. Online school to date does not seem to be creating or supporting more inquisitive, connected and intrinsically motivated learners, except by the space it creates for these approaches away from the school itself. That's something, I guess.
I think that online learning is one way to introduce individualized instruction, but I don't believe it is the only way. I think in the end what will be disruptive is a hybrid of the two that works seamlessly.
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